My dear Robert O’ Blake,
I thought I must write to you because you are supposed to be visiting our shores this week and I’m told you were delayed in making the trip because of Hurricane Irene. It’s good that you survived the storm but then, I’m not sure whether everyone here would see it that way!
We are told, Robert, that you are visiting us because you are ‘concerned’ about what is happening in our country after the end of the war. Now, that is indeed funny because every word that you have said in recent times about us has not been that complimentary.
Look Robert, since we finished the war two years ago, we want to put it behind us and move on to create a better country for ourselves. When people like you keep raking up the past, accusing us of war crimes, it certainly doesn’t help.
We have all heard this nonsense you keep harping about, such as making people ‘accountable’ and about ‘independent inquiries’ and ‘international investigations’ about what happened during the last stages of the war. Even your British cousins across the Atlantic Ocean keep reminding us about this.
And what proof have you got, about all these so-called ‘war crimes’, Robert? An obviously biased documentary aired on a television station in Britain and a dubious video clip is all the evidence you can muster.
Over here, the government denies any war crimes, the Army Commander who led the war effort-even though he is the government’s Number One political opponent-denies any war crimes and even the major Opposition parties don’t claim that war crimes occurred. What more do you want, Robert?
Besides, we have appointed a commission to look into all the circumstances that prevailed at the end of the war and what do you do? Even before the commission can conclude its deliberations and make any recommendations, you-and others who think like you- dismiss it as a propaganda exercise!
And why is it Robert, that all of you talk about the so called ‘thousands of civilians killed’ but you never utter a single word about the more than three hundred thousand civilians who were saved from the clutches of the Tigers, who were planning to use them as human shields?
Then, don’t you think it is not quite right when these so-called ‘war crimes’ allegations can be made against only one party in the conflict? The other party, of course, are the Tigers and everyone knows they committed heinous crimes but we can’t punish them now because they are no more!
How did you expect us to deal with the Tigers, Robert? Didn’t we sit down to talk to them many times only for them to walk away citing one reason or another? And do you think the world’s most ruthless terrorists would have understood any other language other than that coming from the barrel of a gun?
Just to remind you about so called ‘war crimes’, Robert, when your navy seals caught Osama Bin Laden, they didn’t offer him a beer and sit down for a hearty chat, did they? They shot him dead even though he was unarmed at the time. How about that for war crimes, Robert?
And we were shown pictures of Obama and Hillary watching the entire drama as it unfolded from the Pentagon. Now, if Obama was the Commander-in Chief and an unarmed man was killed in cold blood by his troops-notorious terrorist though he was-shouldn’t Obama be charged for war crimes as well?
Of course, Robert, you might find that suggestion preposterous but then, we are only using the same logic that you use, when you accuse our leaders of war crimes. So how about an independent and international inquiry to probe that incident, Robert?
Then, of course there is Libya. We know you chaps and the Brits were instrumental in chasing Gaddafi out, but credible evidence has now emerged that the CIA and MI6 were working with Libyan intelligence until almost six months ago-and that has already caused a big scandal, hasn’t it?I know Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace-although that has devalued the Prize a great deal-but it is fortunate that there is no Nobel Prize for hypocrisy because he would have won that too without much of a contest, judging by these recent events!Anyway, Robert, I must also remind you that you are also only a middle level official from another country. So you shouldn’t be passing judgments on what our country and leaders should and should not do. We can certainly decide that by ourselves.
The last time we had an ambassador who did that-he was from across the Palk Straits and they used to call him Viceroy Dixit-he ended up forcing his leader to support the Tigers and his leader was assassinated by them. Now, you wouldn’t want the Tigers to do that to Obama would you?
So, Robert, while we wish you a happy journey to Sri Lanka, we hope you know exactly where you stand. And if you are really interested in looking at war criminals, you should take some pictures of Bush and Blair and look in the mirror-then you may see some of them!
Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-Isn’t it ironic that you will be spending the tenth anniversary of the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks in perhaps the only country in the world which was able to comprehensively defeat terrorism. Do we detect a tinge of jealousy there?
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